Strangers on the Internet
by Late 2 The Party 2
Summary: I was going to call the story F the patriarchy. Chapter 2 is where the story gets its name.
1. Chapter 1

I thought a while on this... you know what I'm not the trek writer who's really good at this. So I'm going to just try my damn best here. But how the f can I get some girl or woman from our time to the 24 century? Remember I am not the writer who's good at coming up with that sort of thing. But let me try... (yes you're hearing me thinking right now)

Got it!

Q! (thank god for Q for those of us who can't spin different centuries into gold)

Q minced, pranced and alternately marched onto the bridge of the USS Voyager.

Janeway looked sidelong at him and grimaced visibly, as if she were looking at a piece of rotting flesh, or her least favorite Academy professor.

She did all but shudder at the thought of seeing that particular professor again and had to admit that seeing Q was a more welcome sight. Nonetheless, she physically moved sideways in her seat, away from Q as he stepped closer to her. But then she forced her feelings back down as if shoving a down quilt into a narrow space, a lot of force, but not much good effect. Still she brusquely stood up, true feelings sufficiently stuffed, although hiding them entirely wasn't necessary, Q already knew how much she despised him.

"What are you doing on my bridge?"

"Dispensing with the pleasantries, Kathryn?" His eyes were wide, hand to his chest in obviously mock shock.

"You'd make a terrible actor, Q," she spoke the first thought that came to her. She was already at her annoyance capacity in the two seconds he'd been standing there.

Chacotay was on his feet next to her, but Janeway shook her head at him. He could take over, she supposed, when she was so sick of Q she couldn't stand it any longer.

Q shrugged, unconcerned. "The play's the thing, as I'm told," he answered smiling, but Janeway noticed, not a full smile. She returned his look with one of banal loathing, standing motionless and saying nothing but that being said with her eyes, which isn't fit to repeat here.

"I've come bearing gifts!" He forced a grin then, she knew it, and appeared in a flash in a traditional Santa suit, minus the beard. But even he didn't seem to be enjoying himself.

Finally Tuvok broke the silence. "Please state why you are here. If necessary I will escort you to our brig."

Q gave a sharp laugh. "You know better than that," he chastised. A red ribboned set of toy handcuffs appeared on his console.

In another flash Kathryn expected her friend to disappear. Instead, a young woman was standing next to Q, looking even less enthused than Janeway felt.

(Okay hold on, I'm really reaching for it here, trying to somehow telepathically guess what all these thousands of women would want to hear, if they were Star Trek fans, I guess...)

Chocolate. No Sorry, that's what I'm wanting to hear right now, I'm starving. I'll try again. If I suddenly found myself on the bridge of Voyager with Janeway and my current existence was the equivilent of 10 hells...

"Holy shit, it's Captain Janeway!" The woman's despondent expression turned to one of instant joy. (Well, come on what would you say? I mean I know what you think you'd say, but if you completely unexpectedly were right in front of her when a second before you were standing in line at Starbucks or something? Come on.)

"I'm not used to being addressed in that fashion." (let's pretend Janeway knows modern day swears for what they are, though not familiar with multiple uses ie non-offensive expressions) Janeway gave a cold stare at their second uninvited guest.

The woman in front of her stared at her in the same manner she'd been staring at Q with a moment before. Clearly angry and offended...by her.

"Maybe you should get used to it," the strange woman muttered angrily, all joy gone now, glaring at her.

Janeway noticed the tiniest change in her physical demeanor and realized this woman was more hurt than angry. And too exhausted to pretend.

"Have I offended you in some way?" Clearly she had.

The woman cast her gaze to the deck. _"This is not how I pictured me meeting you going."_ As if her dreams had been crushed. But how would you react if you were suddenly yanked from your own admittedly shitty timeline into one in which your favorite tv character existed? Whether it was a dream or not, she hadn't imagined Janeway's first words to her to be so cold.

 _Well this sucks._

So she said what she was thinking, exactly what she was thinking. "I didn't imagine meeting you would start off badly. This is not how I pictured meeting you would go."

Comprehension lit Janeway's eyes. She's angry at herself, disappointed and angry. You didn't need a Betazoid to tell you that.

She found this person, who admittedly could either be another Q or simply some poor individual Q'd snatched up from somewhere to use for his own entertainment, to be wary and guarded, but who yet seemed somehow familiar with her.

Janeway gave her most gracious smile to the young woman and took a step towards her in a show of goodwill.

"I'm sorry," she apologized as if she had been at fault, "Do I know you?"

Katheryn gave a quick glance at Q before returning her gaze to the young woman, or, girl, she couldn't tell an age readily. The only thing that was obvious was the woman wasn't from Earth. Or, knowing Q, not Janeway's Earth.

"I..." the woman paused, "I'm not even sure how I got here. Where I'm from you're not real. Your only substance is as a character in a story at worst, and as people's, mostly women's, imagined heroine at best."

Janeway's eyebrows raised at the unexpected praise. "Well," she smiled, "I'm flattered, if a bit surprised."

"And you must admit," Q interrupted her, "that's quite high praise for a human."

Thinking it might do well to explain Q's presence the Captain added looking at the yet unnamed woman, "Q is an entity that greatly enjoys interfering with other species and using them as playthings."

At that the woman's face lit up and she beamed answering readily, "Oh, I know who Q is!" She waved a hand as if this were old news. "He's one of my favorite characters,"her eyes sparkled, "he's so fun!"

Q's eyes nearly popped from his head. "Did you hear that?" He addressed the crew. "She's a fan," he paused for dramatic effect, "of me!"

His chest puffed up like a rooster and he put a hand to his heart, enraptured.

"Get over yourself , Q," Janeway answered.

"But you don't understand, there is a whole planet that worships me!"

The Captain pursed her lips in annoyance directly sounded at Q. "Care to tell us what's going on?" She asked him at the same moment Tom Paris, having visually appraised the young woman decided, "You look like you're from the 20th Century."

"Twenty first," she corrected.

Ignoring Tom, Janeway still looked at Q.

Immediately Q held up his hands as if he'd been beaten. "I saved her from a horrible existence! And you accuse me?"

"I haven't accused you of anything," Kathryn answered shortly, "but I do know your track record."

"Do you?" He cooed and immediately moved closer to her, eyes hooded and hissed suggestively, "What's yours?"

Considering that clear sexual innuendo, Janeway glared him down.

"Answer me, Q!"

"Well, fine," his tone turned casual as if speaking about the weather.

"I saved this girl from," he paused, " admittedly it would have been more saving if I had intervened sooner," he corrected himself, "but nonetheless I still saved her from a horrible fate. I whisked her away from a time period on earth where female victims of rape were being charged for the crimes of their rapists, taken to trial by their own rapists, instead of they taking their rapists to trial."

Janeway drew back in horror. Earth's history of violence against women, particularly rape, was well documented. And she knew well the very beginning of the 21st Century and its barbaric 360 on the rights and protection of women. Not that men weren't still raping women at that point in history, they certainly were, but men taking the women they themselves raped to court, and winning, that was a marked change. Of course in other parts of the world at that time women were still being stoned jailed and even burned alive if found to be a victim of rape.

Janeway was aware a particularly sickening 21st Century truth taking place not long before the Bell Riots, due to its happening in her home state of Indiana. In Indiana at that time women were required to submit documentation to the government if having any sort of surgery to prove they weren't in fact getting an abortion or having a miscarriage either one having been determined by the nearly all male government as being against the law.

(true. Thanks to a governor named Pence and thanks for my cousin for this info- she was forced to sign documentation that would be submitted to the state to prove she was having surgery for cancer and not getting an abortion or miscarrying,because in either case she'd be required to pay for a funeral and submit that proof to the state as well, otherwise it would be taken as proof that she wanted an abortion. A woman who miscarried but didn't provide proof to the state was sentenced to 20 years in prison for murder. Thanks again Pence for signing that law.)

Janeway stood stock still and slack jawed as she took all this information in. Maybe it was better not to take Q at his word.

"I'm sorry," she realized her usual manners were lax and turned back to the now wide-eyed woman in front of her. She was now looking much happier than she had been when first 'whisked' there. "I"m Kathryn Janeway. May I ask who you are and what, as it appears I do have to ask, what year was it before you were brought here?"

"I'm-"

Janeway held up a hand to stop further speech as she considered that if what Q said were true, that perhaps speaking openly on the bridge in front of the crew was not in this woman's best interest, as social mores of that time still stigmatized anyone for speaking out about abuse.

"Please," she smiled again at the as yet nameless woman, "perhaps it would be best to speak in my ready room.

Janeway stood in the readyroom doorway having escorted the woman inside. She called back to Q, "Stay out there if you wish, this conversation really doesn't involve or require you."

With that she stepped back and the doors whooshed shut before her.

She motioned the woman to the couch and was headed there herself when, just as Janeway'd expected, Q appeared in the room.

"I should say this conversation involves me," he corrected with a haughty tone. He'd simply appeared in the room, having chosen not to use the door. "If it weren't for me, this girl wouldn't be here now."

"Fine Q, but sit down and be silent, if you can."

Then she turned all attention to the young woman.

"Now, please. Tell me who you are and where and when you are from."

"My name is Shay Flores, I'm 25 and come from California. It's the year 2018 and Donald Trump is President."

Q grimaced in disgust and shuddered.

Janeway smiled cordially. "I'm pleased to meet you."

"Now, how do you know who I am? And is Q correct in what he said? Can you shed any light on that?"


	2. Chapter 2

Janeway looked at the history that was living and breathing in front of her, and remembered the 37's for a moment. "And why did Q take you away?"

"You're asking me if I'm able to read Q's mind," she reminded her, evenly.

"To be frank, Kathryn," Q spoke then, sitting cross legged across from the women, "It was my protege Amanda who notified me of a problem. She was...vacationing as it were, and became aware of the problem. She...interfered."

The girl cast a cold glare at Q. "She would have helped millions of women if her interference were directed at another person."

"Did you want a man named Pants to run your backward country? On a backward planet with your backward species?" Q raised an eyebrow and pursed his mouth in disapproval. (Pants is how many people (who speak with a southern accent) in Pence's homestate of Indiana pronounce that last name and I think that tidbit is hysterical. Visiting there I spat soda out my nose when I heard someone other than my cousin say it that way. I thought she was joking about it- she wasn't!)

"Why did you bring Shay here?"

"It seemed preferable to her current position."

Watching the expression on the woman's face, Kathryn believed she could hear her thoughts. This girl wanted to stay on Voyager.

"Shay can you tell me what was going on in your life that was so dire that Q took you?"

"Well, certainly there are millions worse off than me, starving to death, in concentration camps, children taken from their parents and held in cages, girls who have their vaginas sewn closed without any anesthesia because that's easier than teaching men not to rape..."

"It's nothing compared to that."

She shrugged, her curled blond hair puffing outward slightly at the movement, the curls springing up and then releasing. "I got raped and abused a lot as a child," her tone was conversational and nonchalant, as if this were commonplace, "thrown down the stairs every day till the bones in my neck fused together. The constant rapes rendered me unable to have children and destroyed muscles in my thighs and pelvis."

Janeway felt her muscles tighten like a body of ancient armor around herself, her shoulders became titanium sheets. Every muscle tensed to fight, to protect.

She felt cold, frozen. Hearing this history in person gave her such a feeling of revulsion, glimpsing an aspect of history that sickened her, and here it was in person and yet she was just as helpless to stop it. She wasn't entirely sure she was breathing, nor that her heart was beating. She was listening, feeling with her entire body what felt like the millenia of the abuse of her ancestors, in the flesh.

"And now?" her voice sounded both distant and choked.

"I moved away from him, two thousand miles away. But he found me, moved near me and started to stalk me. I got a restraining order," she paused, adding, "a legal document designed to provide protection against abusive people."

The Captain felt compassion but also bewilderment. She voiced her confusion in a kind voice, "Could you not get protection at the time of the abuse?"

"My parents would lie. My neck and leg injuries are from gymnastics accidents, falling from uneven bars or the beam. Gymnasts are always covered in . Other adults would rather believe that than the truth, so they turned a blind eye."

With a heartfelt sigh she added, "My family protected my brother, because he was a family member."

Janeway felt as if she'd been punched in the gut as that sank in.

"Your own family chose to protect your abuser over yourself?" It was unfathomable.

Flores simply nodded, unfazed by any of this. "When your own family shows you they don't believe you, it's impossible to believe anyone else ever would. A courtroom of strangers? Lawyers are notorious for destroying rape victims on the stand. No one wants to go through that without support, especially a child. And as an adult, knowing my entire family would defend my rapist and call me liar would never look good. Rapists with DNA and video evidence against them are set free by the millions. I would certainly get no justice with no evidence but my word against his and injuries that could be explained away by eager attorneys."

Janeway felt her body shaking uncontrolably. She didn't know why this was happening, or what to do to stop it. So she simply sat, hoping no one else noticed. Or if they did that they would have the decency to ignore it.

"Tell Janeway about the stories." Q was goading her, practically salivating in anticipation. He clearly knew more about the situation than Janeway. She was convinced that he was using this poor young woman as his entertainment, and nothing more.

With a sigh and eyeroll of annoyance, she complied.

"One of my favorite things to do was read fanfiction when I wasn't watching you on tv- that's anonymous stories created about tv shows or books," she explained. "When I went to court for my restraining order, his lawyer was there. He said that my rapist had found my stories that talked about abuse and he handed me a summons that said he was suing me for getting a restraining order _and_ talking about him on the internet."

"Did you write stories about what he did to you?" Q was choking back laughter. Not being privy to what Q knew, Kathryn glared at him in open disapproval. To her mind he was making fun of an abused woman.

"No."

"How was he able to find these stories written by other people? And why would he think that you wrote them, talking about him?" Janeway's question.

"He said he searched for certain terms to see if I was talking about him on the internet-"

"I'm sorry, internet?" Her rememberances of history didn't include that term. She was still shaking, and distracted by it.

"A method of sharing information, documents, video, media accessible to millions on a computer screen."

Then she continued, "And he found fanfiction stories that mentioned the same kind of abuse he'd done to me."

"Do you know who wrote the stories?" Q asked this question, a knowing smirk on his face.

"No."

"So your rapist thought strangers on your internet were talking about him!" Q didn't hold back his laughter this time. In fact he materialized a group from a 50's supper club, all uproariously laughing along with him. Finally Shay grinned, her body tension releasing, shoulders dropping.

Tension broken, Janeway found she was no longer shaking. Grateful, she stood up and began to pace the room.

"He thinks strangers are talking about his crimes." Janeway voiced that idea slowly.

"He thinks strangers are talking about his crimes," she muttered the phrase again thinking. The law had never been a strong interest of hers yet...

"If he thought documents of abuse were speaking of him, that would seem to indicate that he did in fact commit those crimes."

Shay smiled.

"He's paranoid." Q yawned, done with it all, it seemed.

Shay agreed but answered back, "Criminals usually are, especially when they think they're being exposed."

But Janeway was quick to correct them both. "That criminal is a megalomaniac."

Flores cast a sidelong glance at Q. "Something Q's very familiar with."

Janeway began to laugh, still engrossed in her own thoughts.

"He would have no case! If the writers are anonymous there is no way to prove who is being spoken of. Every detail of one's life could be mentioned and it would be impossible to prove anything."

Q rose to his feet and with a flourish began applauding her. Janeway stopped laughing abruptly. "Stop it," she barked. Looking intentionally wounded, he did so, but not without every annoying bit of over-acting imagineable to convey his hurt to her.

She glanced at Flores. The woman did not look as relieved as Janeway thought she should. "Is there something to this that I am missing?"

"If only that were true. All it takes is to cast a shadow of doubt. And... if you're rich,like he is now, anything is legal, and winnable.

"But, he's taking you to trial because he thinks complete strangers are talking about him!"

Q was quick to correct her. "He thinks she's talking about him."

"But complete strangers are talking about their own abusers-" Shay added to Q's statement.

Janeway cast both hands up, flustered and enfuriated by this insanity. It could not be allowed.

"Which means he's guilty because no innocent person things a description of criminal is referring to them, unless they committed the crime!"

"I'd say that's entertaining." Q said this, floating in the air like a cheshire cat.

"It is. Or, it would be," she sank back into the cushions of the couch she was still sitting upon, "if it wasn't so emotionally and physically taxing on me."

Janeway'd been evaluating the girl. She was slim with long curly blond hair and bright blue eyes, or rather eyes that used to be bright. Her eyes now looked dark and sunken in to her face, the whites of her eyes having a bluish tinge. And when she'd moved her head Kathryn could see that spots of hair were gone all over her head. Fallen out from stress, was her best guess.

"I didn't speak of him before, but I'm more than willing to do so now."

Janeway saw a familiar glint in the girl's eyes. It was one she recognized in herself when she wanted something badly, or wanted to make someone pay for a wrongdoing.

Almost casually she reached for a PADD on her end table and passed it to Shay.

"Would you like to write it down?"

Shay met her gaze, a smile of anticipatory glee barely disguised on her lips, anger flashing in her eyes. She grabbed the PADD without another word and activated it.

"I wasn't talking about him before and he's suing me because he thinks I am. I don't suppose I'd have anything to lose if I really started talking about him. And if I do, he'll be really sorry. Because there is a lot that he did to me that these strangers on the internet never mentioned."

Q's smile was just as anticipatory as that of the women. "I look forward to reading it, my dear."

Shay's smile vanished. "You won't," she replied. "Because if I wrote the truth of what he really did, you wouldn't have the stomach to read it."

"But imagine if it were published where he could easily read it. I'm certain as obsessed and paranoid as he is, he's likely," how do you old mortals put it?" He was referring to Flores... "ah yes, combing the internet."

"I bet he's reading this right now." Shay answered, smiling like the Grinch, thrilled to finally get her revenge.


End file.
